


The Beach at Night

by AliciaSinCiudad



Series: Tumblr-prompt stand-alones [18]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Gen, Jyn-centric, Post-Battle of Scarif, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-05-10 04:51:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14730284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliciaSinCiudad/pseuds/AliciaSinCiudad
Summary: Jyn walks the beach at night to be alone.A short introspection from Jyn's point of view, as she walks alone, and thinks about solitude, Bodhi, and Cassian.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the [photo prompt](http://k-m-brown.tumblr.com/post/174047291709) in k-m-brown's tumblr.

 

 

Jyn hated beaches in the daytime.

The reminded her of the Battle of Scarif, of the shouting, the fear, the precise mix of adrenaline and utter exhaustion, the smell of blood and fire and ozone comingling with that of salt water and sand.

But the beach at night was a calm thing. The waves lapped gently at the shore, and the sand was dampened only by salt water. The streetlights flickered softly, and the overcast sky seemed to muffle the low buzz of a city that doesn’t sleep exactly, but certainly dozes...

Jyn walked the shore at night to be alone.

Jyn had spent a lot of time alone. Her first four years she’d been surrounded by a loving family, by their well-connected friends, and by a city that covered an entire planet. Her next four years were quieter, and while she was often out of eyesight and earshot of her parents, she never felt that they were far away. But after Krennic came back for her father, after her mother threw herself away ( _sacrificed herself,_  Jyn amended), Jyn never trusted anyone to be there, not even if they stood directly by her side. She’d started to trust in Saw, and look where that had gotten her.

After Saw left her, Jyn learned to be on her own.  She was often lonely, and often bitter, and often despairing, but she learned to value herself, to defend herself, and to trust herself. Joining the Rebellion had not been so different than joining Saw’s Resistance, except that she had a lot more choice in the matter. And she exercised that choice, choosing often to be alone, if only for a little while.

Jyn walked the long, thin strip of beach from one end to the other, and then made her way back to the mountains, where she knew Bodhi would be waiting for her in the ship. Waiting was perhaps an overstatement – he might be sleeping already. He tended to work himself to exhaustion, as it was the only way to overcome the anxiety that otherwise kept him awake. He was learning to sleep through the nightmares, and Jyn had learned not to wake him. She was starting to sleep through the nightmares too, both her own and Bodhi’s.

Sometimes, though, when they both couldn’t sleep, they would sit together, and feel safe. Not necessarily comforted. Not necessarily any less alone. How could she feel togetherness with this man who had known her father in ways she never would? Who had grown up with a family, damn him, and yes he had lost them, but hadn’t she lost family too, and multiple times at that? How many times had she lost a parent, while Bodhi had only had to lose his mother once? It was a terrible thing to be jealous of, and she would never speak these feelings out loud, certainly not to Bodhi, and that made her feel even more alone, even more isolated, but at least with him she knew that she was safe, as safe as she’d ever been anyhow, and that had to count for something.

Sometimes Bodhi talked about his life, and she’d let him. He tended to ramble – Bor Gullet had left him unable to think linearly for too long at a time. Of course, Jyn had no idea what he’d been like before. Maybe he’d been a rambler then, too. She learned to take what he said with a grain of salt, knowing that memory was always subjective, and his more than most. Some days, she’d even let herself love him. Maybe this was what having a brother was like, if you never quite trusted your brother to still be there in the morning.

She had loved someone else, briefly, and it might have been mutual, although it was hard to tell. By the time she’d realized what she felt, she thought it was the wrong moment, busy as she was with the business of saving the galaxy. She thought that they’d have all the time in the world to discuss this. Or that neither of them would, so it wouldn’t matter anyway. But as she held him in her arms in the back of the stolen cargo ship, Bodhi gunning it as fast as he could away from the destruction of Scarif, Cassian had slipped from consciousness and never returned. Would it have made a difference to tell him? Would it have made a difference to know if he felt the same? She shoved those questions down into the same locked tunnel where she kept all her emotions. It looked a lot like the tunnel on Lah’mu where her parents had abandoned her, a lot like the bunker where Saw had left her the first time, a lot like the caves on Jedha where Saw had abandoned her one last time.

Sometimes Bodhi talked about Cassian, his admiration clear as daylight. Maybe more than admiration. Jyn didn’t press, because she didn’t want to think about her own feelings, her own aching loss for what could have been, maybe, in another lifetime. She tamped down her rage when Bodhi talked about her father. Every moment Galen had spent with Bodhi was one he hadn’t spent with her. She tamped down her instinct to defend Saw whenever Bodhi talked about the torture, as well as the instinct to tear into him too, to blame him for what he’d done to Bodhi, for what he’d done to her. These men, these three huge men, left looming absences like gaps in the wall that stood between Jyn and Bodhi. Through their shadowy silhouettes she saw a man as sad and scared as she was. And she hated him as she hated herself, loved him as she wished to love herself, forgave him as she could not forgive herself.

Before she left the beach, she crouched down once and touched the lapping waves of the sea. It left her fingers wet; she left no mark on it. As she climbed up to the pavement, it was already erasing her footsteps.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this back in August as a response to a comment from Sassy, and I thought I'd make it more visible to other readers.
> 
> Going off the lines:  
>  _By the time she’d realized what she felt, she thought it was the wrong moment, busy as she was with the business of saving the galaxy. She thought that they’d have all the time in the world to discuss this. Or that neither of them would, so it wouldn’t matter anyway. But as she held him in her arms in the back of the stolen cargo ship, Bodhi gunning it as fast as he could away from the destruction of Scarif, Cassian had slipped from consciousness and never returned._

 

 

 

"Did we do it? Did someone get the plans?" Cassian's voice was so low, Jyn could hardly make out his words. He twitched and jerked restlessly in her arms, shivering in the thermal blanket she'd wrapped him in. His breathing was too quick and too shallow, his eyes darting desperately from one thing to the other without focus. "Did we... Did we..."

May the ancestors forgive her this one small lie.

It might not be a lie. It might be the truth.

And if it wasn't true, there was nothing they could do now, anyway. They just had to survive a quick ride through hyperspace, and they'd all get the medical attention they needed.

If it was a lie, but it kept him going, it was worth it.

"Yes," she told him. His darting eyes stilled, fixing her with a look so trusting, and hope bloomed warm in her heart. "Yes," she repeated, more assuredly, convincing herself as much as him. "We got the plans out. And someone received them. They're on their way back to Base One now."

"Good," Cassian breathed. He smiled, and his eyes drifted shut. His body relaxed, and he exhaled a single long sigh.

No. No! NO!

"Jyn, keep quiet!" Bodhi hissed from the pilot seat. "I have to concentrate or we'll crash into - _KRIFF_ \- Just keep him alive, and I'll do the rest!"

Jyn didn't look up to see if he'd shouted from a near miss, or from pain. She didn't look at his wild expression, eyes wide in a face smeared with sand and ashes, or at the rigid way he held himself, the tourniquetted remains of his left arm stabilized against his chest. She shook Cassian fiercely, ignoring the damage she might do to his already too-injured body.

She realized she was crying only when the tears burned against the raw skin on her face, realized she was shouting only when her throat hurt almost too much to breathe. Finally, she lay her head against his chest to hear his heartbeat one last time.

She'd already missed her chance.


End file.
